I found GeoGebra to be a useful tool to help generate code for graphs. I suppose there must be other tools to help draw diagrams such as Sets/Venn Diagrams or Electrical Circuits (Logic Gates). Which ones would you suggest?

14 Answers
14

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio,' though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, as well as LaTeX formats such as PGF, PStricks and Metapost.

The list misses TikzEdt. It provides a GUI and semi automatic drawing tools. For details: TikzEdt web site. Available for linux/windows. Upon right clicking in the figure (on right) window, it offers a number of options to draw using the mouse. After drawing the tikz code will be inserted in the left window automatically. On the left panel, there are some styles/shapes etc from where the corresponding code can be inserted. The figure can be exported to number of formats like pdf, png, jpeg etc. And it is free.

Just a small note - tried to install it on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty; first tried getting the source from SVN, but there is no README I could see; and I don't know much of C#, which this is programmed in. Luckily, there is a binary Linux build, see TikzEdt_0_2_2_linux_x86.tar.gz - TikzEdt 0.2.2 for Linux 32bit; unfortunately it requires 60MB of mono-complete, and my version is also too old; luckily the same link has instructions on how to get it working on 11.04, and thankfully it works for me!
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sdaauFeb 17 '14 at 19:48

Also, nice that this version (0.2.2), renders nodes according to their width/height settings in code (in contrast, tikzit 0.7 doesn't - it always shows the nodes in same size, even if I modify minimum width and minimum height in the code).
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sdaauFeb 17 '14 at 19:52

tizkedt have not been updated since june 2013. That is verylong time in computer scale. I wonder if it is still alive.
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NasserDec 1 '14 at 5:52

as 2 separate files: One containing the lines graphics (in EPS or PDF format), and one containing the formatted text; or

as a single EPS or PDF from which you can use the psfragx package (or psfrag) to convert literal strings into LaTeX typeset. Although I've never used it, there's a deprecated xfigfrag extension to Xfig that provides a pdffrag functionality.

Unfortunately, Xfig is also practically dead, even though many people still use it productively. The project has not seen a new version for more than 10 years and the user interface is pretty old-fashioned and awkward. So while Xfig certainly is a powerful tool for those that are accustomed to it, I would not recommend it to newbies.
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DanielMar 4 '12 at 16:07

3

Xfig was replaced/extended a while ago by Ipe (ipe has 'figtoipe' converter). ipe was last updated on : 2013-11-07
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Harish KumarNov 25 '13 at 2:33

Inkscape knows how to export to TeX with PSTricks...so you can go this route, though the export is not complete yet. There is a begining of an extension to do this for TikZ, but it's very primitive.
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Yossi FarjounAug 30 '11 at 19:41

Ipe extensible drawing editor is a free vector graphics editor for creating figures in PDF or EPS format. It can be used for making small figures for inclusion into LaTeX documents as well as making multi-page PDF presentations. It is developed by Otfried Cheong since 1993 and initially worked on SGI workstations only. Ipe 6 was released in 2003 which changed the file format into XML code embedded into PDF and EPS files. Ipe 7 was released in 2009. Ipe 7 (see below) can be compiled under Windows, Mac OS X and Unix but binaries are available for many distributions.

Also

IPE allows the user to insert text objects containing LaTeX code. This
is converted to vector graphics by parsing the output of pdfTeX. This
is useful for creating figures to be included in scientific documents
which often contain equations. It also results in the same font being
used for both the text and figures of the document. This is often not
the case if other drawing programs are used.

Just a small note about ipe - for some reason, I always thought you can draw in ipe, and then export as Tikz / Latex code; but I just checked my install (Ipe 7.0.10), and it can only save as .ipe .xml, .pdf or .eps ; and the same goes for input files (although, it cannot open arbitrary .pdf - apparently can open only those produced by itself).
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sdaauMar 25 '14 at 13:10

Note about the edit screenshot: on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty, I cannot install a compiler with Objective C 2 features; and Browse /tikzit-0.9 at SourceForge.net notes: "Changes since 0.7: Compilers without basic Objective C 2 support cannot be used to compile TikZiT any more"; which is why I could only compile and screenshot that version at this time.
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sdaauFeb 17 '14 at 18:01

I didn't see Cirkuit mentioned here already, so here are a few words from the homepage:

Cirkuit is a KDE4 application to generate publication-ready figures. It was born as a KDE frontend for the Circuit macros by Dwight Aplevich, but it now supports different backends. Cirkuit builds a live preview of the source code and can export the resulting images in several formats (EPS, PDF, PNG, SVG, ...). ...
In addition to Circuit Macros, the TikZ and Gnuplot backends are currently supported. Some examples generated with TikZ can be found here. ...

What is GCLC? GCLC ((c) Predrag Janicic 1996-2009) (from "Geometry Constructions->LaTeX converter") is a tool for visualizing and teaching geometry, and for producing mathematical illustrations. GCLC provides easy-to-use support for many geometrical constructions, isometric transformations, conics, parametric curves, flow control, automated theorem proving, etc. The basic idea behind GCLC is that constructions are formal procedures, rather than drawings. Thus, in GCLC, producing mathematical illustrations is based on "describing figures" rather than of "drawing figures". Figures can be displayed and exported to LaTeX and other formats. WinGCLC is the Windows version of GCLC and provides a range of additional functionalities.

LatexDraw is very good in generating PStricks Codes. Its very easy to generate these codes automatically by drawing the figures using LatexDraw. You can get this amazing free software at this link: http://latexdraw.sourceforge.net/

Yes I have seen .. and I voted up for that. Just wanted to share my views too.
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DebashishMay 30 '14 at 8:46

1

Personally, I don't really see the point of having two answers mentioning the same software. (I don't mean to sound hostile or anything, I just don't think this answer was necessary.)
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Torbjørn T.May 30 '14 at 8:53